As we all are aware, us, humans are the only ones constantly changing or wanting to change something about ourselves every single day. Correspondingly, changing is an activity that is distinctly human, a function of how the human brain is coordinated. The various ways in which humans conceptualize, create, and pursuit for meaning has become a recent focus of the quality of life and generally, the subjective well-being of one another.
I would like to focus on the context of personal goals and life purpose. My intention are to document how meaningful living, expressed as the pursuit of personally significant goals, contributes to positive experience and to a positive life. Goals are essential components of a person’s experience of his or her life as meaningful and contribute to the process by which people construe their lives as meaningful or worthwhile. For example, a generative goal to “teach my son to make a difference in his community” lends meaning and direction to the role of parenthood.
The goals construct has given form and substance to the amorphous concept of “meaning in life” that humanistic psychology has long understood as a key element of human functioning. Some have argued that the construct of “meaning” has no meaning outside of a person’s goals and purposes—that is, what a person is trying to do. Goals are signals that orient a person to what is valuable, meaningful, and purposeful. This is not to say, however, that all goals provide meaning or even contribute to a sense of meaning. Many goals are trivial or shallow and, although necessary for daily functioning, have little capacity to contribute to a sense that life is meaningful.
127 our experts are availableright now
Beyond identifying these motivational clusters, more specific questions can be asked. Are there certain types of goals that are consistently linked with happiness? Does the way in which people strive for their goals—for example by framing the goal in abstractor concrete terms or using approach versus avoidance language—affect the experience of subjective well-being? Do the goals need to be integrated into a more or less coherent package where conflict is minimized for maximal positive well-being? What advice could be given to persons so that they might extract more pleasure from their goal pursuits? These are questions toward which the remainder of the chapter is directed.
Taken together, then, the findings on goal content and well-being indicate that when it comes to the positive life, not all goals are created equally . Rather, certain clusters of goals consistently tend to foster higher levels of well-being than other types of goals. Intimacy, generativity, and spirituality are intrinsically rewarding domainsofgoalactivitythatrenderlivesmeaningfulandpurposeful,particularly compared to power strivings or strivings for self-sufficiency. Spirituality has been virtually ignored in contemporary models of motivation and well-being yet there are compelling empirical and theoretical reasons for its inclusion in any comprehensive account of human well-being
